The Eighth Prince (Rewriting) (Barely Updates)

8: Insubordination

Here’s Chapter 8 for you! I hope you like it. (It’s a little long, though…)

Relendria’s Note: Sorry for the long delay everyone. This was entirely my fault. Life was chaos and I had a hard time getting this chapter done. I hope it was worth the wait.

Chia-Hao handed his used utensils to the private cleaning up and walked after the scout who had just reported the approaching group. The scout had confirmed that there were approximately 100 men so Chia-Hao was even more convinced that these were the Imperial guards sent by the Empress. His shoulders tightened imperceptibly as he drew closer to what would undoubtedly be another confrontation.

Chia-Hao hated confrontations. Confrontations were invariably filled with a lack of logic, too much noise, and messy emotions.

However, this one was unavoidable.

Shortly before they reached the border of the patrolled area, Jin dropped from the trees and went down on one knee with his fist over his heart in a gesture of respect. He ignored the startled guard who had his sword out and ready to strike.

“Highness, I assumed you would like my report before meeting the men,” Jin said in a calm and steady voice.

“You assumed correctly,” Chia-Hao replied, gesturing at the nervous guard to stand down.

In a few moments, Jin made it clear that the Empress’s men were not responsible for the delay in rejoining Chia-Hao – it was the Emperor’s men and there were four in particular who had deliberately delayed matters. One had claimed ill health until Tao had ordered the man tied to his horse. The man had made a miraculous recovery at that point.

Chia-Hao nodded, unsurprised at the news, and the three men continued on their way. By the time they reached the clearing where the men waited, Chia-Hao had formulated a rough plan on how to deal with the insubordinate soldiers his father had given him.

Meanwhile, rumors were percolating in the Zhuang encampment about a narrow ravine between the encampment and the Zhong fortifications.

The rumors were still small – one slave whispering to another about the ravine as a possible escape route. They were soundly beaten by the supervisor who overheard them. Fortunately, the supervisor didn’t know how they grinned slyly at each other when they returned to their work.

In the kitchens, one of the cooks who had defected from a nearby village before the Zhuang army destroyed it mused about the ravine to a flirtatious prostitute – also from that destroyed village. They were overheard by a soldier getting off from patrol.

And with a whisper here and a quiet conversation there, knowledge of the ravine began to spread throughout the Zhuang encampment.

Along the edge of the ravine closes to the river, men skilled in creating canals and dams were having an animated discussion of the best way to channel the nearby river into the ravine. They eventually agreed that three channels for the water would be best, one at each entrance to the ravine and one in the middle. With that decision made, strong soldiers began working furiously to create a solid path for the water. As they worked, the munitions specialists were already planting explosives to block both entrances to the ravine and the army’s best trackers helped them to disguise the fuses that would set off the explosives.